Daily Smile

[{"type":"text","text":"Now let's all enjoy a baby elephant \"attacking\" a couple....."}]

Smile 5 27 25

Cowboy State Daily is Wyoming’s largest newspaper with Wyoming’s most experienced journalists. 

<title>Daily Smile: Tuesday, May 27, 2025 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Now let's all enjoy a baby elephant "attacking" a couple.....

Daily Smile: Tuesday, May 27, 2025

 Now let's all enjoy a baby elephant "attacking" a couple.....

Mac Watson

Daily Video News

It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming for Tuesday, August 4th.  I’m Mac Watson.

This newscast is brought to you by the Wyoming State Fair. Wrap up your summer at the Wyoming State Fair, August 11th through the 15th in Douglas!

Rodeo, Demolition Derby, live music, entertainment and fair food await. Learn more at W-Y State Fair dot com. See you at the fair! This ad was paid for by Converse County Tourism.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"},{"type":"italic"}],"text":"–"}]

Gambling sites PolyMarket And Kalshi both favor Steve Friess to win the Republican nomination for U.S. House and Eric Barlow to win the GOP nomination for governor. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that bettors, so far, have wagered $210,000 on these two Wyoming races.

“So these markets, according to pollster Dustin Olson, are not really a crystal ball. They're more a reflection of headlines and chatter, and sometimes publicly released polls, and sometimes internal polls that people know about. So on the one hand, it's kind of a composite of chatter and publicly released polls and headlines. On the other hand, people are at least confident enough that they're willing to put money forward.”

Dustin Olson, owner of American Pulse Research and Polling, tells Cowboy State Daily that political wagering is, “one of the more fascinating things to happen in politics in the last decade.” But it carries risks of fixed races, dishonest polls, and even inside political maneuvering.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"–"}]

Worland athlete Roman Parra died Sunday, eight days after being ejected from his vehicle in Colorado. Cowboy State Daily’s Kolby Fedore reports that his mother says her son’s purpose in life was to spread kindness.”

“A 20-year-old Worland man died eight days after a crash in Weld County, Colorado, that claimed the lives of three others on impact. Roman Parra was traveling in the car with four others when the vehicle got into a rollover collision. All five occupants were thrown from the vehicle, according to the Colorado State Police. Investigators are examining whether alcohol played a role in the crash, as there were opened and unopened alcoholic beverages inside the vehicle.”

 to help cover Roman's medical and funeral expenses.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"– "}]

For most of Wyoming, July was the hottest month in recorded history. Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports that Worland's scorching 110 degrees on July 12th was the hottest, while many towns saw as many 100-degree days in one month as they usually see in several years.

“The numbers are in – July 2026 was not only the hottest month of the year; it was the hottest month on record for many Wyoming communities, and some of those records go back as far as 1891. In the case of Lander, several communities had many days where there were 100 degree plus temperatures, for example, in Riverton, I think they had at least five, 100 degree plus days. That's as many as they might have in several years.”

National Weather Service meteorologist Jason Straub in Riverton, tells Cowboy State Daily that seven communities either set records or tied for the hottest July on record.

Sen. Eric Barlow says attack ads accusing him of voting to allow sex changes and voting to send money to illegal immigrants are not true. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that Barlow says the bills he voted against were poorly written or rushed and are being twisted against him.

“These attack ads in some of them will they'll attack Eric Barlow, Senator Barlow, for these attack ads will go after Senator Barlow for voting against a child sex change ban in 2023 when he actually voted for a different child sex change ban that same year, same thing with immigration – they'll go after him for voting against a sanctuary, an anti-sanctuary cities bill in 2025 when he voted for what he thought was a more careful version of it that same year.”

The new attack ads say Barlow voted to send money to illegal immigrants. He denies making such a gesture, saying his nay votes on two immigration bills were due to the short, rushed nature of the budget-planning sessions that fall on even-numbered years.

I’ll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"   "}]

Cowboy State Daily News continues now….

A Rawlins churchgoer says her "heart was just so broken" after worshippers stepped outside of Sunday service to find remnants of a bicycle crash that killed an 8-year-old boy. Cowboy State Daily’s Kolby Fedore reports that worshipper Michelle Greer says, “I work at the school, and I knew it was one of our kids.”

“An eight-year-old Rawlins boy was struck and killed on Sunday in Rawlins at a busy intersection on East State Street and Jefferson Avenue. The Wyoming Highway Patrol says the boy was heading north and possibly went through a stop sign when he was struck. A witness named Michelle Greer says she was in church when she heard the sirens. Everyone in the church went outside, and there they saw the mangled bicycle. There was a black tarp covering a body, and she believes the man was brought to the hospital for what she is calling a nervous breakdown.”

Investigators reported the roads were dry, the weather was clear, and the pickup driver was not injured. The crash remains under investigation and authorities have not released additional details.

Big Horn County Search & Rescue is second only to Teton County in calls due to booming tourism and uniquely rugged and remote terrain leading to the high-risk missions. But Cowboy State Daily’s Kate Meadows reports that as demand for rescues have quadrupled, the agency's budget has been cut in half.

“Property tax legislation has caused Bighorn County Search and Rescue to see huge cuts in their budget for operating. They went from 106,000 a few years ago down to 50,000 in 2025. Meanwhile, their calls for help have quadrupled as more and more people travel through Bighorn County on their way to Yellowstone or sometimes to The Bighorn Mountains. When the Wyoming legislature voted to cut property taxes, that scrapped a lot of funding for these rural search and rescue operations. Bighorn County receives the second most volume of calls for their search and rescue behind Teton County search and rescue.”

The challenge facing Big Horn County is unique. Although only about 12,000 people live in the county – which ranks among Wyoming's lowest for median family income – nearly 1 million visitors travel to or through it each year.

A Thermopolis woman accused of neglecting an 87-pound elderly man who’s mostly deaf and blind, and wears diapers that allegedly hadn’t been changed in 10-14 days has reached a plea agreement. Cowboy State Daily’s Greg Johnson reports that the deal calls for no jail time and a year of probation.

“Part of the agreement is that she would still be part of the abuse registry. If you're convicted of certain abuse crimes, you have to register and be on some registry. Now this is a plea agreement. It doesn't mean that the judge has to accept it or not. That that we don't know. The court file didn't say whether the judge has actually accepted this plea agreement or not, and then sentencing won't happen for at least 60 days, so we don't know exactly what sentence she’ll get.”

A no-contest plea isn’t an admission of guilt, but acknowledges there’s enough evidence to secure a conviction. If 67-year-old Colleen Blakesley had been convicted of a felony, she would’ve faced up to 10 years in prison.

For years, a huge male grizzly called Bruno was one of the brawniest bears in Grand Teton National Park. But Outdoors Reporter Mark Heinz reports that Bruno is past his prime and those who routinely watch him are saying he's gotten thinner and “is on the downhill side.”

“He's somewhere around the age of 22, which, according to what a bear biologist told me, is roughly about 10 years past a bear's you know the peak of their prime, so he is showing his age a little bit. Some people say he maybe looked a little thin right about now, but they haven't really gotten, you know, that they do that pig out right before they go into hibernation. They haven't really had that yet, so he might still put on some weight. But he is getting old. He's past his prime.”

Bear biologist Cecily Costello tells Cowboy State Daily that dominant, male grizzlies hit their peak sometime in their early to mid-teens. She also added that Grizzlies rarely live past 30 in the wild.

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And that’s today’s news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on 

 - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our 

 channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I’m Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.

News image 8 4 26

<title>Cowboy State Daily Video Newscast: Tuesday, August 4, 2026 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Tuesday's headlines include:
* Barlow: Attack Ads Aren’t True
* Gambling Sites Favor Friess & Barlow
* Grand Teton’s Mighty Grizzly Bruno Getting Old

Cowboy State Daily Video Newscast: Tuesday, August 4, 2026

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's Feature Reporter, Andrew Rossi.

Andrew Rossi

Wyoming Life

For many Wyoming cities and towns, July was the hottest month on record, going as far back as 1891. 

With another month of record-breaking temperatures, day after day, 2026 is on track to be the hottest year in Wyoming’s recorded history as well. And, at this point, there’s no end in sight as we move into August.

“The consistency and intensity of the heat, especially for northern and northeastern Wyoming, was really remarkable,” said Cowboy State Daily meteorologist Don Day. “I fully expect that if it's not the hottest July in many areas, since records have been kept, it will certainly be in the top three.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"In Record Heat"}]

Throughout July, Wyoming was under a stubborn heat wave that refused to let up. 

Jason Straub, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service (NWS) in Riverton, said seven communities either set records or tied for the hottest July on record.

“Big Piney, Buffalo, Casper, Lander, Riverton, Rock Springs, and Worland have set year-to-date records,”  Straub said. “We're well into first-place all-time rank for those sites.”

Historically, Riverton has a day with temperatures over 100 degrees three times every five years.

There were six days with highs at or over 100 during July. That’s around 10 times the five-year average in a single month.

Lander, which has the oldest climate records in Wyoming, usually has one 100-degree high every six years. It had two 100-degree days in July, which is 12 times the average going back to 1891.

Meanwhile, Cheyenne set its own record in July: the longest streak of days where temperatures stayed above 60 degrees, even overnight.

“Temperatures didn’t drop below 60 degrees for 13 days, between July 18 and July 30,” said meteorologist Shelby Fuller with NWS Cheyenne. “Our previous streak was eight days. That’s very unusual for Cheyenne and Wyoming as a whole.”

Average temperatures in July ranged from 3.9 degrees to 6.3 degrees above normal across Wyoming. Between 69% and 77% of the days in July had above-average temperatures.

Even places prone to heat during the summer, such as Worland, set record highs in July. Worland's 110-degree high on July 12 broke the town's record for that day by 3 degrees and was the hottest in Wyoming last month.

[{"type":"text","text":"It also ranks among the hottest days ever recorded in Wyoming."}]

For the record, the hottest temperature ever recorded in Wyoming is 115 degrees at the Wind River Diversion Dam on July 15, 1988.

It’s all really hot, but Day noted that some historical records are longer than others.

“Nobody’s saying this is the hottest July since the dawn of time,” he said. “

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Heat Under Pressure"}]

The primary source of July’s record-setting heat was a high-pressure ridge with a “bull’s-eye” over northeast Wyoming, according to Day.

However, Wyoming’s humidity was also high throughout July. That typically means more moisture, but that didn’t happen.

“What we were fighting for the month of July was moisture being drawn into Wyoming, but the high-pressure ridge over the Northern Plains was so strong, it was making it harder to rain, even though we had that moisture.”

Straub added that another high-pressure ridge set up over the Four Corners region. That means Wyoming spent July sandwiched between two ridges that kept everything hot and dry.

“That ridge stretched well into Wyoming for most of the month,” he said. “That blocked moisture and let the heat dominate and repeat, day after day.”

High-pressure ridges, and the heat domes they create, are expected to set up somewhere in North America during the summer. In July, Wyoming got the short end of the stick.

“When these ridges set up, there's not a whole lot to push them around,” Straub said. “It needs the jet stream to push them around, but the jet stream's well into Canada at this time of year, so it's not influencing any heat domes that set up.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Monsoon Too Soon"}]

The unrelenting heat of July also meant the monsoonal moisture many people were hoping for never showed. The moisture-rich air from the Pacific Ocean arrived, but it couldn’t beat the heat.

“That's the thing with the monsoon,” Fuller said. “Even when there are increased chances for heavy rainfall across the area, that doesn't mean every single place is going to see and/or benefit from it.”

For the few places that got some monsoonal moisture, it was a decent month for precipitation.

According to Day, thunderstorms were much more active in western Wyoming in July, explaining the 

. The disparity between western and eastern Wyoming, due to the high-pressure ridge, was “quite remarkable.”

“Any time a thunderstorm really wanted to build up, or it looked like there could be multiple days of thunderstorms, they were running into that high pressure east of the Continental Divide,” he said. “That’s how much it influenced the eastern side of the state.”

[{"type":"text","text":"High humidity is also what kept overnight temperatures high."}]

“High humidity keeps those temperatures warmer at night, and makes it more uncomfortable in the heat,” said Day. “That’s one thing that sticks out to me, and a lot of people probably noticed that nighttime temperatures stayed elevated all month.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Stuck In The Middle Of It"}]

Straub said the NWS Riverton office was still compiling data from stations that malfunctioned in July. He expects that data would only add more confirmation to what’s already known.

“If it wasn’t the hottest July on record for those places, it’ll be pretty close,” he said. “They had the same heat as everybody else.”

No relief is expected anytime soon. Monday and Tuesday were to be significantly cooler, with daytime highs in the 70s, but the heat will be back.

“Once this cold front is through, we're back into hotter temperatures, upper 80s and 90s, by the end of the week,” Fuller said. “Unfortunately, it looks like August is probably going to be another hot one.”

Day expected the first half of August to feel like July, with above-average temperatures and stubborn heat. After that, he’s “cautiously optimistic” that Wyoming will get cooler.

“For the first 10 days of August, don't expect too much different,” he said. “When you go through the second half of August, we normally start to see things subtly change. Days are getting shorter, nights are longer, and it gets harder to get prolonged periods of that kind of heat.”

Those subtle changes could give monsoonal moisture a chance to manifest and fall as precipitation across Wyoming. 

The critical thing to remember, even if August eventually gets cooler, Straub said, is that it’s still the peak of summer. Wyoming’s summers are always hot, but this record-breaking streak seems poised to continue, keeping 2026 on track to be the hottest year in Wyoming’s recorded history.

“We're still in the middle of summer,” Straub said. “That area of high pressure can reestablish itself pretty quickly, so we're not out of the heat quite yet. Hopefully, everyone can stay cool until then."

Worland temperature 7 13 26

<title>July Was Wyoming's Hottest Month On Record — And 2026 Is On The Same Pace | Cowboy State Daily</title>

For most of Wyoming, July was the hottest month in recorded history. Worland's scorching 110 degrees on July 12 was the hottest, while many towns saw as many 100-degree days in one month as they usually see in several years.

July Was Wyoming's Hottest Month On Record — And 2026 Is On The Same Pace

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Dale Killingbeck

Dale Killingbeck

Business & Tourism

CASPER — Texas is turning to a Wyoming mint to produce its official commemorative gold and silver coins sold through its Texas Bullion Depository.

Texas is the first state to authorize official commemorative coins and the first to have its own depository for precious metals. Officials from the state were at the Scottsdale Mint recently to see the first coins stamped for 2026.

“It’s the Cowboy State alliance,” said Josh Phair, CEO of the Scottsdale Mint. “It’s historic. To see a state who is obviously constricted in what it can and can’t do with coinage (and) legal-tender, this is a pretty big statement piece.”

While states cannot create their own currency, the fact of Texas endorsing and legislators authorizing the commemorative gold and silver coins to call attention to the depository is “making a statement,” he said.

Phair emphasized the role of gold and silver as currencies throughout the ages and called it a type of “Noah’s Ark” investment.

Tom Currah, associate deputy comptroller for fiscal matters in the Texas Comptroller’s Office, said coins are meant to broaden the scope of the Texas depository and potentially have purchasers store their metals at the facility.

“We’re excited about the launch of the new coins,” Currah said. “The Texas Legislature about a decade ago decided that the state should have a depository for people to store their precious metals. This is sort of the next step in that process.”

Currah, who graduated from Natrona County High School in Casper, said Texas contracted with Lone Star Tangible Assets, which runs the state’s depository, to produce and mint the one-ounce and half-ounce gold coins and one-ounce silver coins.

The state’s first commemorative issue with the precious metals occurred at the end of 2025 and resulted in 26,000 silver coins and 565 coins being purchased in a two-week period.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Quality Important"}]

Lone Star Tangible Assets CEO Matt Ferris said he chose the Scottsdale Mint because he has known Phair for several years and understands the mint's quality of product. 

The goal is to have a product that rivals the quality of the U.S. Mint.

“Naturally, we couldn’t do it in Texas,” he said. “Then the question was, ‘Where can we make a quality product in the United States so when someone asks ‘Where was this made?’ You’re not saying we’re making Texas coinage in Canada or the U.K.'”

The 2026 Texas coins were the last designed by well-known numismatic artist Joel Iskowitz. He died a couple of months ago, Ferris said.

The coins' face depict the goddess of Liberty holding the Lone Star over the Texas Capitol’s dome.

Phair said every coin produced at the mint has its own “recipe” that involves the tonnage pressure of the press on the metal and the times it is stamped so coin quality is maintained. 

“The tricky thing is if we produce something right now, and they go order 100,000 of them, making sure it’s consistent all the way through,” he said. “A lot goes into making sure the repeatability is there in production.”

Last week, mint workers tried a few sample runs of the 2026 Texas coins to help establish the recipe.

The Texas commemorative coins can be purchased by anyone and can be found on typical gold and silver coin dealer websites. The depository is also available to the nation’ residents to store their precious metal in, Ferris said.

“It brings another level of checks and balances,” Ferris said. “Consumers using a depository or potentially buying a product don’t have to just take a private company’s word that everything is on the up and up. … You actually have the state of Texas confirming that (the coins are) there.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"American-Made Product"}]

Phair said Texans choosing the Scottsdale Mint makes it an American-made product. He noted that many commemorative coins come out of Canada and some from Australia.

Currah said the whole commemorative coin program is just getting started and plans eventually call for greater production of the coins.

The Texans’ initially ordered 25,000 silver coins for the 2026 issue. Instead of getting the design to the mint midyear in future years, they are trying to advance and speed up the production process.

“The 2027 coins we are trying to issue in January and February,” Currah said. “I imagine by the end of 2026, we’ll have designs probably ready to go for 2028 and 2029.”

In addition to producing the commemorative coins for Texas, the 

produces coins and legal tender for more than 20 foreign governments and central banks, Phair said.

More information about the Texas Bullion Depository can be found at texasbulliondepository.gov.

Scottsdale Mint Texas Photographing Coin 7 26 26

<title>Why Texas Turned To Casper Scottsdale Mint To Produce Gold, Silver Coins | Cowboy State Daily</title>

As the first state to authorize official commemorative coins and have a depository for precious metals, the State of Texas turned to Casper's Scottsdale Mint to produce gold and silver coins. They chose Casper because it rivals the quality of the U.S. Mint.

Why Texas Turned To Casper Scottsdale Mint To Produce Gold, Silver Coins

Jen Kocher - Headshot CSD

Jen Kocher

Crime & Courts

The initial pass missed it completely. The drone touched down almost directly in front of it — that close, but still they didn’t see it.

It wasn’t until days after the search, combing through video frame by frame, that Bill Dohse and his team found what they were looking for last month: A metal barrel can wedged on its side at the bottom of Fremont Lake, obscured beneath a swirling veil of sediment and algae more than 430 feet deep.

Dohse, president of the nonprofit Organized Search and Rescue (O-SAR), couldn’t believe his eyes.

“I was like, ‘Holy crap, how did we miss it?’” he told Cowboy State Daily.

Then the weight of it hit him. Had they just found the final piece of a decades-old murder mystery?

[{"type":"text","text":"The pieces were falling into place."}]

along with a barrel spotted two weeks earlier from the same lakebed —

 might finally shed light on what Gerald Uden did with the bodies of his ex-wife and his two adopted sons.

Uden has already confessed to the killings. In 2013, he told Wyoming investigators he shot Virginia Uden and the boys — Richard, 11, and Regan, 10 — in September 1980, luring them out under the pretense of a hunting trip. Their bodies have never been found.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"At The Bottom Of The Lake"}]

Uden told authorities he initially concealed the bodies in a nearby mine before discarding them in receptacles in the lake. He said he put Virginia in a sealed 55-gallon steel drum, into which he had either shot or drilled holes to help it sink. The boys were put together in a 35-gallon steel garbage can and sunk alongside it.

The problem, until now, was that nobody could find either the barrel or can.

Searches in 2013 and 2014 turned up nothing — including one in which Uden himself accompanied Sublette County Tip Top Search and Rescue (TTSAR), which scoured the lake with their side-scan sonars, thermal-imaging drone and other underwater search equipment. 

That fact, combined with Uden’s shifting stories — he initially claimed to have dumped the bodies in the Pacific Ocean off the Oregon Coast — had long cast doubt on his credibility.

But his account has remained consistent in the years since, and authorities now have good reason to believe the two found objects are no coincidence.

“It’s a fantastic feeling,” Dohse said. “After 45 years, the families of Virginia, Richard and Reagan Uden may finally be close to the closure they deserve.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Letters From Prison"}]

None of it would be possible without new information that arose from an unlikely pen-pal relationship between a private citizen and Uden, Dohse said.

president of the Gillette-based missing person nonprofit 

, began writing to Uden four months ago after learning about Virginia and the boys as part of her 

nonprofit’s coffee sleeve campaign launched this spring

 featuring the faces of Wyoming’s missing.

She and her volunteers have assisted in a half-dozen missing-person cases over the past four years, of which this reporter has taken part, 

including the search for a missing Kenyan nursing student in Gillette

Koester’s group offers a host of free services for families and loved ones of the missing, including poster sharing, media, investigative help, support with funeral expenses, and searches and recoveries, all with the sign-off of law enforcement.

She’s tried a lot of techniques for garnering information but never attempted writing to a convicted murderer in prison for his help, but figured it was worth a try.

“It’s part of our determination to bring home the missing, which led to our working on cold cases,” Koester said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Bringing Them Home"}]

Uden, now 84, is serving three life sentences at the medium correctional facility in Torrington.

This is where Koester found him after writing in May to ask if he’d killed them and, if so, specifically in the lake where he dumped the bodies.

[{"type":"text","text":"Koester explained that was her primary purpose."}]

“I was 100% honest with Gerald from my very first letter that my goal was to bring Virginia, Richard and Reagan to a proper rest and burial,” Koester said.

 before the Wyoming Supreme Court in which he recanted those earlier confessions, claiming they were made under coercion.

But he eventually opened up to Koester in his second letter, admitting to their murders and repeating his story about putting them in Fremont Lake, in the foothills of the Wind River Range just north of Pinedale.

He had since picked up painting in prison, he wrote, and wanted her help in selling those paintings, with all proceeds going to his stepdaughter.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Two Maps"}]

Koester sensed a bargaining chip and pressed Uden for a specific location in Fremont Lake. She further appealed to his conscience, sharing her remorse that the two boys – with their lives already unfairly cut short – were left in a watery grave without a proper burial.

She implored Uden to tell the truth about where he stashed their bodies. When he repeated they were in Fremont Lake, she sent him two maps.

Both he marked in roughly the place where he put in his boat and about where in the lake he dropped the bodies.

It turned out the spot now marked by Uden was outside the perimeter of the original search area.

Koester believed Uden was telling the truth. She took the letters and maps to Dohse and his team, and shared the information with Ryan Cox, commander and head of cold cases with the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI).

Dohse, after much deliberation with the Fremont County Sheriff’s Office, DCI, local search and rescue groups and his O-SAR partner, Eric Butt of 

information was worth launching a new search

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Infamous Enough"}]

Uden knows about the discovery of the barrel and told Koester he has mixed feelings about their bodies being recovered.

[{"type":"text","text":"He’s already “famous\/infamous” enough, he told her.  "}]

“I really do not need any more attention,” Uden wrote. “I do understand why any of their family would want recovery, but that does not concern me.”

Koester had further reason to believe Uden would now truthfully confess after the death of his wife, Alice, who he told Koester was the love of his life.

She, too, had been serving a life sentence, in a separate and unrelated case, for the 1974 murder of her third husband, Ronald Holtz, who was 25 at the time. She claimed he was abusive and she killed him in self-defense.

The case went cold for nearly four decades until 2013, when her son came forward and turned her in. His body was recovered from a mineshaft on a ranch property where she’d once been lived as a caregiver. 

It was Alice’s arrest that prompted Uden’s confession.

Uden, then 71 and living with Alice in Missouri, had no knowledge of her arrest. When state and federal authorities flew out to question him, he cooperated fully — confessing to the killings under the mistaken belief Alice had been implicated in the deaths of Virginia and the boys, wanting to make clear she had played no part.

He changed his tune, however, upon her death from health complications on June 12, 2019, at which point he said Alice was complicit in both the crime and coverup.

He also shared this with Koester. Not only did Alice approve of the murders, Uden told Koester, but she helped him dump the bodies.

It had been their fourth anniversary, Nov. 5, 1980. he said, when the couple went out to the lake in a 16-foot StarCraft aluminum boat with a 55-horse motor to dump the bodies in the dead of night.

His reasons for the killings, Uden told authorities, according to court documents, were that Virginia and the boys were causing problems in his marriage with Alice. He had adopted the boys and paid child support after his roughly two-year marriage to Virginia; he married Alice shortly after the divorce.

In letters, he told Koester he didn’t want to kill the boys but likened it to a Godfather situation in which he didn’t want to be constantly looking over his shoulder for them to turn him in for killing their mother.

He loved the boys, he said. When he first met Virginia, they were “walking problems,” Uden said.

They were picky eaters who didn’t want to go to bed at night and were also poorly disciplined. But he’d really wanted a family, so he’d taken them on and mostly had the problems under control, he said.

Searchers are optimistic that the barrel and a trash can they found two weeks ago at the bottom of Fremont Lake contain the bodies of a young mother and her two sons murdered by notorious killer Gerald Uden. Their next step is to recover the barrels.

Daily Smile: Tuesday, May 27, 2025

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